Evelyn Hope

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed; She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the glass; Little has yet been changed, I think: The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; It was not her time to love; beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares, And now was quiet, now astir, Till God's hand beckoned unawares,-- And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? What, your soul was pure and true, The good stars met in your horoscope, Made you of spirit, fire and dew-- And, just because I was thrice as old And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was naught to each, must I be told? We were fellow mortals, naught beside?

No, indeed! for God above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love: I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delayed it may be for more lives yet, Thro' worlds I shall traverse, not a few: Much is to learn, much to forget Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come, at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) In the lower earth, in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red-- And what you would do with me, in fine, In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, Given up myself so many times, Gained me the gains of various men, Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed me: And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while! My heart seemed full as it could hold; There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. So hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep: See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! There, that is our secret: go to sleep! You will wake, and remember, and understand.

Note especially the transition from the trochees, expressive of tender love and feeling, in stanza three, to the iambics, expressing conviction and confidence, in the following stanzas:

"For God above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love: I claim you still, for my own love's sake."

In Browning's "One Way of Love" (p. 150) the iambics in the first lines express determination and endeavor, but there is a decided change in the metric movement caused by the agitation, disappointment, and deep feeling of the last two lines of each stanza.

It is never possible to study metre in cold blood. It is the language of the heart. Only an occasional versifier in a critical or intellectual spirit grinds out a machine-made metre, every foot of which can be scanned according to rule.

A poem which is written seemingly in one metric measure will be found, when read aloud with proper feeling, to have several. Contrast the last stanza with the third from the last of "In a Year" (p. 201), and one feels that the third from the last has the stronger iambic movement. This possibly expresses hope, or impetuous longing, while the last, returning to the trochee, expresses intense despair. At any rate, these two stanzas cannot be read alike. Of course, a different conception on the part of the reader would affect the metre. The interpreter must take such hints as he finds, complete them by his imagination, and so assimilate the poem as to express its metre adequately by the voice. The living voice is the only revealer, as the ear is the only true judge, of metre.

In "Confessions" (p. 7), the waking of the sick man, his confusion, his uncertainty whether he has heard aright, and his repetition of the words of his visitor, are given with trochaic movement, while his own conviction and answer are given in iambics; yet his story, possibly on account of the tenderness of recollections, frequently returns to the trochaic movement.

In the same way, to his question

"... Is the curtain blue Or green to a healthy eye?"

he gives a slightly trochaic effect as a recognition of his own sick condition. A positive settling of the question by his own illustration is indicated by the emphasis of the iambic movement in the next line.

These are illustrations only. Two persons who have thoroughly assimilated the spirit of a poem, may not completely agree concerning its metre. It is not necessary nor best that they should. There are delicate variations which show spontaneously the difference in the realization of the two readers.

Such personal variations, however, which result from peculiar experiences and types of character, must not be confused with the careless breaking of the metre which we hear from all our actors and public readers. The latter is the result of ignorance and lack of understanding and realization. The late Henry A. Clapp, criticizing a prominent actor in "Julius Caesar," broke forth in a kind of despair and said: "After all, where could he go to find adequate methods for the development of a true sense of metre?"

Metre will never be fully understood until studied in connection with vocal expression, nor will vocal expression ever rise to its true place until applied to the interpretation not only of poetic thought, but of such elements of poetic form as metre. And where can a better means be found for both steps than the study of the monologue?

The student should observe the metre as well as the thought of every monologue he examines, and read it aloud, attending faithfully to the spirit of its metric expression. So poor is the ordinary rendering of metre, that it is almost impossible to tell the metre from the ordinary reading.

Trochaic metre is often read, as if it were a kind of crude iambic. When one is in the mood or spirit of one foot, unless he has imaginative and emotional flexibility, all feet will be read as practically the same. I have known readers, speakers, and actors who have completely lost the dactylic and even the trochaic spirit or mode of expression.

Let any one select a poem and render it successively with different metres and note the effect. We must often be made to feel the power of wrong vocal expression to pervert a poem before we can realize the force of right voice modulation in interpreting its spirit.

The student must realize each metric foot as an objective expression of a subjective feeling. Doubt is often felt even by the best critics, and great difference of opinion exists among them, but the reader who understands vocal expression, studies into the heart of the poem and uses his own voice to express his intuition, will settle most of these difficulties satisfactorily to himself. Vocal interpretation is the last criterion of metric expression.

The universal lack of attention to metre is, no doubt, connected with a universal neglect of the expressive modulations of the voice. In our day the printed word and not the spoken word is regarded as the real word. This has gone so far that some educated men seem to regard metre as solely a matter of print.

While metre may be one of the last points to be considered, it is not the least important to study; nor is it, when mastered, the least useful to the thought, feeling, imagination, and passion, or to the right action of the voice in interpreting the spirit of the monologue.

There is an almost universal tendency to regard as superficial, actors and those capable of interpreting human experience by the living voice. Men who should have known better have said that it is not mental force but simply a certain peculiarity of temperament that gives dramatic power.

One of the most important things to be sought is the better understanding of the psychology of dramatic instinct. I have already tried to awaken some attention to the peculiar nature and importance of this in "Imagination and Dramatic Instinct," but the subject is by no means exhausted. That discussion was meant only as a beginning.

When actors and public readers feel it necessary to train the voice and the ear, to develop imagination and feeling, to apprehend the true nature of human art, and to meditate profoundly over the spirit of some great poem; when they treat their own art with respect and give themselves technical training, adequate metric expression will begin to be possible.

At present, it must be said in sorrow that the ablest actors and most prominent public readers blur and pervert the most beautiful lines in the language. They seem blind to differences as great as those between the sunflower and the rose.